The provision of white or colored bands circumferentially about the sides of a pneumatic tire is well known. Such "white sidewall" tires are generally accepted as the mark of a premium tire and are often required to compliment the body features and styling of the car on which the tires are used.
There are various known methods for generating a "white wall" band on a tire. The basic prior art teaches the implementation of extruded inlays placed in the tire carcass during construction and later buffed to obtain a uniform exposure of the decorative sidewall band after the curing operation. Further, attempts at spraying, painting, or otherwise depositing such decorative strips have been known, but the prior art typically involves either (a) wrapping of a specially compounded white rubber onto an unvulcanized tire carcass during assembly of the carcass, or (b) masking and air spraying of paint onto a cured tire, or (c) pouring of paint into a groove purposefully imparted into the tire sidewall for purposes of containing such paint, or (d) rotating a paint dispensing head around a stationary tire.
Prior to the invention herein, it has been most desirable to provide for the decoration of a tire sidewall without (a) the cost and complexity inherent in the extrusion of specially compounded rubber inlays, (b) the time and cost associated with the masking and mask cleaning in spraying operations, (c) the need for provision of sidewall groves to retain paint therein, (d) rotation of the dispensing device itself about a stationary tire, and (e) waste resulting from over spraying.